The fear in Little Managua

IN THE terse vocabulary of the courts, the suit is known as “the matter of N-J-B”. It is the appeal of a class-action suit affecting as many as 40,000 Nicaraguans who arrived in Miami in the 1980s and have lived there ever since.

“N-J-B” is Norma J. Baldizon, a former teacher and mother who, since early this year, has lived in fear of a knock on the door and a command to pack her bags for a one-way flight to Nicaragua. Her story could be repeated countless times by tens of thousands of Nicaraguans who fled the country during the civil war between the contras, backed by the Reagan administration, and the left-wing Sandinista government. Many refugees sneaked illegally across the border into Texas from Mexico; others came as “tourists”, but with no intention of going back. They sought political asylum and, even when denied that, decided to stay and make the best of it.

Most came to the Miami suburb of Sweetwater. There they got jobs, found wives and husbands, had children, started businesses and paid taxes. They joined the parent-teachers association at the local school and called their shopping district “Little Managua”. A recent economic analysis credited the Nicaraguan community with contributing $1 billion annually to the county's economy. Without them, one politician said in a court filing, “Sweetwater would cease to exist.”

In short, the newcomers did everything but become American citizens: a goal that seemed frustratingly elusive. Unlike the more politically powerful Cuban refugees, the Nicaraguans for years lived in a limbo-like status: not given political asylum, yet regularly granted work permits and made to feel welcome. In mid-1995, the Clinton administration invited those Nicaraguans who had lived in Miami for seven years, could show they were of “good character” and had put down roots in the community, to apply for permanent residence under a 40-year-old programme called “hardship relief”. But last autumn Congress revised the welfare law, limiting the number of people who could get such relief to 4,000 a year.

The Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) also seized on a provision that made it impossible for most Nicaraguans (as well as many Salvadorans and Guatemalans) to meet the seven-year residence test. As a result, the agency sent deportation letters to thousands who, like Mrs Baldizon, had already failed to obtain political asylum and now could not gain relief. The instructions were blunt: report to the INS with bags packed, ready to return to Nicaragua.

Panic swept many Miami districts. Entire families began a nomadic existence, living with friends in “safe houses” for short periods, then moving elsewhere to evade the letters. Carla Sanabria, 28, the mother of a three-year-old son and wife of an American-born man, made the mistake of taking her letter to an INS office. She was led into a room, held for several hours, directed to relinquish custody of her child to her husband, put on an aircraft and returned to Managua with $20 in her wallet—all within ten hours.

In early June, in response to a lawsuit filed by Mrs Baldizon and others, a federal district judge ordered a stop to the deportations. The INS policy was “irrational”, he said. The arguments raised by the refugees for staying were “dramatic, heart-rending and powerfully persuasive”. His order is on appeal, but for the time being it has lifted the cloud that covered Little Managua.

Last week Janet Reno, the attorney-general (who has authority over the INS) stepped in, saying that Nicaraguans could not be deported without having the opportunity to apply for the hardship relief that had been promised in 1995. Since the government had played a role in uprooting these people once before, agreeing not to uproot them again seemed the least it could do.